Vixen Porta II Alt-Az Mount

Sometimes electronics tie you down. Armed with this, a nice 600mm lightweight APO or a good pair of astronomy binoculars via the binoculars attachment tray, you can really journey the stars and stay awhile once you find something with minimal tracking maintenance. I'll use this with a nice carbon fiber video tripod. Be aware that mounting this to a regular photo tripod requires some extra parts so check with CS if you've got questions. I use one of the slots on the bottom of the porta II to connect a tripod, they are not perfectly centered but it works. There is a push handle for this if you want to not touch your scope to move the direction.

Easy to adjust. Easy to use. The 2 hex wrenches needed for the adjustment are included and are stored on the mount. The fine alt/az knobs attach directly to the mount without a cable avoiding the need to worry about the cable coming lose. An easy adjustment of the mount changes the placement of the knobs so you don’t have to bend like a pretzel when you’re looking through the eye piece. It accommodates my 140mm Mak even with a one pound panoptic and is rock steady. While I was setting up for some solar viewing last week, I couldn’t help but wonder why I didn’t have something this good and this inexpensive 20 years ago when I bought my scope.

Can't review this yet as I haven't been able to take it out. However, this is the second Porta II I've owned and if this is like it's predecessor, then I'll be most happy!

Great tripod! Love it, makes turning and spinning my scope to any position in the sky.

As usual dealing with Rod was a fantastic experience!

I have bought this product recently, when OPT had great dela on selective ***** products, so I paid for the mount/tripod even less than it's regualrly sold for - plus I received that famous 5% discount from OPT! First, I am very happy with OPT, I always have been, they take care of you. I never had a problem whatsoever, even once when I had to return a pair of binos (not due to their fault). This product arrived very fast and in perfect condition (even the outer box). Second, I tried it so far only with the achromatic refractor, ***** A80Mf, the one Port II isregulrly sold as a package. I bought the scope as a demo unit over a year ago from another retailer. That package worksvery well and I am very p[lease with smuthness of the motion on both axis. Dumpening time is very short with normal 1.25" eyepieces and the diagonal. I'd say couple fo seconds tops. It keeps the weight of the scope and its basic accessories well. The tripod, when extended, is quite high but with a medium FL refractor like the one I use it's still required that one goes pretty much to his knees to look through the optical viewfinder - but not the eyepiece - when the scope points straight up, to the zenith. Slow motion controls work well though I think their coupling with the mount head (screws) could be executed better. It leaves sort of flimsy feeling. Not that they fell off so far, it's just that the connection does not seem really secure because it is not as easy to tighten the screws (one for each contorl) as it should be. I will try this mount with my Celestron NexStar 102GT refractor (another product purchased from OPT over a year ago when they had that crazy sale of them for unbelievably cheap - and excellent product, btw!) but I doubt the performance will be as good considering it's physical size (length and weight) and also that I will try it with 2" accessories. Thoguh I didn't try it with a small SCT or Mak (6" or smaller) or a small reflector (5" or smaller), my understaind from posts around the net is that this muunt does very well handling any of them. Maybe someone else with personal expereince can chip in to comment that. Overall, highly recommended and a great buy if you dont' care for EQ and/or Go-To mounts.